Olive Annabell Maureen Sterry came into this world at 2:19 p.m. on September 13, 2007after almost 60 hours of labor, weighing in at 9 lbs. 2 oz. Olive was determined to make an immediate splash, which she did by making her mother’s water break at five o’clock in the morning on September 11. Olive’s due date was September 5 so technically she was a week late, although obviously the due date is an artificial construct of a society that wishes to control this most uncontrollable of events. But this artificial due date would come to influence Olive’s birth immensely. Because she was “late” she was not allowed to be delivered in a nice quiet birthing center suite with a big tub and a double bed, kind of like a cheap room in a Ramada Inn redone Laura Ashley style. This was the first in a series of maddeningly arbitrary decisions which were forced upon Olive by the hospital which made her life much more difficult, and seemed to be motivated by fear of litigation rather than the safety and well-being of Olive. So Olive had to be born in the madness of the delivery room of the hospital proper, and by the time she was born, it was so crowded there were women literally going into labor in the hallway.

Olive’s mother basically felt nothing out of the ordinary for 18 hours after the breaking of the water. Unbeknownst to her she was having a series of tiny mini-contractions. I don’t know who Braxton or Hicks are, but I hope one day to have a contraction named after me. Having both seen so many movies and television shows where a pregnant woman’s water breaks, and then she has to frantically give birth in the back of a taxi cab, Olive’s mother and father were confused when the water so monumentally broke, fluids gushing willie and nilly, and then… nothing. They went to the hospital, they were examined, and were told to go home. So Olive spent the night in her mother on the day the water broke. The next morning Olive arrived again at the hospital, and she was checked in utero. The mother and father could not understand how this could be labor. Laughing and cracking jokes, thinking about next year’s line of mismatched socks and chilling with friends and family. Then a woman came into the hospital who was also very very pregnant. But she wasn’t laughing and cracking jokes. Pain was etched all the way into her face. She was flushed and damp with mad perspiration, a kind of insane look in her eyes, like she was in another state. Clearly this was a woman in labor. Olive’s mother was now hooked up to machines, prodded and probed, jabbed and stuck, measured and examined. A microphone was placed on her belly, and Olive’s heart was broadcast out of a speaker, while simultaneously numbers appeared on a screen, and a printout spit out of a computer, all corresponding with the heartbeat of Olive. BOOM BOOM BOOM! The one constant in the whole labor process was the heartbeat of Olive. Rocksteady, pounding, it was magnificent and inspiring. Through the thick and the thin, the pushing and shoving, the tears and fears and panic and triumphant, you could set your watch by the heartbeat Olive.

And so they all assembled: Olive, her mom, her dad, her mother’s mother, her mother’s godmother, her dula and her midwife, with a series of nurses, technicians and the occasional cleaner making cameo appearances. Now you could actually see the contractions displayed on the graph, next to that heartbeat, BOOM BOOM BOOM! They were small and irregular, these contractions, especially when contrasted with the heartbeat of Olive. And they stayed that way for many hours, as everyone chatted and laughed and swapped stories. It was like a party in a really depressing apartment without any music or alcohol. It wasn’t until Olive’s grandmother and grandfather left that the contractions suddenly intensified palpably. Olive’s mother’s eyes got glazed and dazed and she seemed to go into kind of a trance, her breath got short, and all of a sudden she wasn’t participating in the happy banter. And there on the contraction graph, you could see a huge spike, the line jumped straight up all the way off the paper. It lasted for 30 seconds maybe, but it seemed so much longer, because it was so intense. I lived through many earthquakes in California, and that’s kind of what it was like. An earthquake. And then it was over. Olive’s mom had asked the midwife and the dula over and over, “When is it going to be Active Labor?” The dula now turned to Olive’s mother said, “Now it’s Active Labor.” This new phase of quaking just kept going on and on and on and on and on and on, until time lost all meaning, and eventually Olive was in Twilight Contraction Zone . But there was still no way to know if Olive’s mom’s body was ready for her to come out. No one had any way of knowing of course that Olive was a behemoth. The midwife didn’t want to give an internal exam, for fear of infection, due to the fact that the water had broken so long ago. At the suggestion of the dula, Olive’s mother had been working diligently on the Big Ball, perfected a series of exercises which loosen the hips and pelvis. During this contraction marathon, she balanced furiously up and down on the Big Ball, while huffing and puffing and working her way through the spasms that wracked her body. Olive’s mom kept saying that Olive seemed to be sinking lower and lower and lower. Although at the time no one referred to her as Olive. Olive’s mother and father did not know Olive’s gender until they saw it with their own two eyes. They had decided on the name Olive quite early on, but they had struggled to find a male name. Turns out they needn’t have bothered. Finally, after too many hours of contracting over and over, the midwife decided to determine how close Olive’s mother’s body was to being ready. Turns out it was not very ready at all. And by this time Olive’s mother was utterly exhausted, whipped from exertion and pain. She would just start shaking, sometimes a leg, sometimes both, sometimes her whole body, violently involuntarily shaking. It reminded me of runners at the finish line of a marathon shaking uncontrollably, having lost control of their body.

After much deliberation and discussion, a suppository was inserted to try and make the process happen more quickly. This seemed to have little effect. Then, after more deliberation and discussion, it was decided that a drug would be injected to induce labor. And a pain relieving epidural seemed clearly in order. Soon thereafter in marched the anesthesiologist, an extremely put together man, crisp, meticulous and immaculate. He wheeled in a large metallic box, like a magician, and laid out all his tools on its flat surface. I once worked as a fruit picker, with migrants. The way they attacked a fruit tree was incredible. They didn’t seem to be moving that fast, but everything happened so rapidly you couldn’t even follow it, it was surreal. That’s what the anesthesiologist was like. He had a small needle inserted near the spine of Olive’s mother so quick you thought your eyes were deceiving you. Then he threaded what looked like a metallic fishing line into the hole. Or I’m assuming he did, I didn’t see it, all of a sudden it was just there. I don’t even think the man spoke a word. Then all of a sudden, like the Lone Ranger, he was gone without even waiting for thank you. Instantly Olive’s mother felt relief. Her face softened and she relaxed. The contractions continued thick and heavy, although Olive’s mom was able to bear them much more easily. But still the body was not ready for Olive to come out. So Olive’s mother slept, and gathered her strength. Recharged and revived, the inducing drugs working away, now the epidural was discontinued. It was time. The midwife reached in and started manipulating things inside Olive’s mother. You could see Olive moving around through the thin skin, thrashing and kicking as she was sucked downdowndown into the canal of life as Olive’s heart beat BOOM BOOM BOOM!

And at last, 59 hours and 45 minutes since the start of labor, the body was ready. The grandmother and the godmother and the husband and the dula and the midwife prepared with the mother for the final phase. With the midwife’s fingers expertly manipulating inside the body of Olive’s mother, the pushing began, three to each contraction. And on and on it went, with each contraction the midwife exhorting the mother to keep pushing even when she could push no more, three pushes, with the breath held, then released sinking into the bed. And suddenly there it was, the top of the head. Even though it was clearly visible it was completely unbelievable. Even though you knew it was going to happen, it was incomprehensible. Even though you understood what was going on, it was ununderstandable. The grandmother wept and wept, as she helped, great tears of joy and release at the miracle of it all, and the godmother kept saying things at just the right moment to relieve the tension. The dula was here there and everywhere, supplying what was needed even before it was asked for. The husband whispered in the ear, and supplied the oxygen. And the midwife was like the captain of the team, organizing, letting everyone know what they should do in a commanding yet gentle voice, always knowing what to do, with her hands deep inside the body of the mother, moving and rearranging and allowing life to enter the room. And then a third of the head was being pushed out and then going back in again at the end of the contraction. And then there it was again with another contraction and push, the whole head even as you watched you kept asking yourself, “How is this happening?” Then the midwife started yanking on the head in what seemed like, to the interested observer, a shockingly violently aggressive manner. The father had a sudden vision of the midwife ripping his daughter’s head right off, the poor headless baby flailing its arms, while the horrified head looked on. But no, the midwife’s magic fingers slid Olive right out of her mother. A collective gasp went up from the room. The mother was overcome with relief and happiness and unspeakable metaphysical physical soul opening exhilaration and awe. Then suddenly Olive was lying on her mother’s chest, still attached by the cord to the inside. The midwife and dula rubbed Olive sweetly and vigorously. Olive’s tiny yet huge lungs filling with air for the first time, and she gave out a small cry, as if to announce: I am here! And then the father was crying copious tears overflowing with a love that he had never felt, and he saw Olive learning to talk and walk and read and going to school and learning to drive and falling in love and getting married and having a baby of her own, eternity in an instant, infinity in an infant’s eyes. And that is how Olive Annabell Maureen Sterry came into the world at 2:19 p.m. on September 13, 2007.

Olive Annabell Maureen Sterry now lives at 7 Bellaire Dr. Montclair, NJ 07042.